More States Are Laying School Paddle to Rest

By WILLIAM CELIS 3d

Published: August 16, 1990

The threat of lawsuits, an increased concern about child abuse and new evidence that minority and handicapped children are paddled more often than other students have combined to revive the debate about corporal punishment in schools. In the last three years the number of states that have banned paddling has nearly doubled.

Although 30 states still permit it, corporal punishment is now outlawed in 20 others, as against 11 states in 1987, according to the National Coalition to Abolish Corporal Punishment in Schools, a group in Westerville, Ohio.

''There's a growing awareness that it's counterproductive,'' said John B. Roesler, a Santa Fe, N.M., lawyer who has represented several families in lawsuits against schools over their use of corporal punishment.

As alternative means of discipline, schools are making more frequent use of parent-teacher conferences, counseling, after-school detentions and revocation of privileges like recess. Most educators say these approaches are more enlightened and constructive than hitting a student's buttocks with a wooden paddle, still the most prevalent form of corporal punishment.

''Paddling lowers the dignity of the student and the parent,'' said Charlotte Laughlin, of Brownwood, Tex., who has a daughter entering first grade. ''I don't think paddling resolves anything.''

Sentiment favoring corporal punishment in schools is most prevalent in the South. Arkansas led the nation by paddling 13.7 percent of its school children in 1986, according to statistics compiled by the National Coalition to Abolish Corporal Punishment in Schools from a survey by the Department of Education. More than 10 percent were paddled that year in Alabama and Mississippi, the next highest-ranking states.

''In more cases than not, I think it's O.K.,'' said Glossie Terry, a Benton County, Miss., mother whose two sons, Keenon, 15 years old, and Garrett, 11, have both been paddled in school. ''I'm from an old-fashioned home. My parents were paddlers.''

Such attitudes have blocked efforts in some states to prohibit corporal punishment. In Texas, a proposal to end it failed in the Legislature's last session.

Some educators said this reflected a conviction among many parents that children need strong and threatening forms of discipline.

Lawsuits Turning the Tide

But more and more the rigid approach is giving way to a less aggressive one, and society's litigious streak is one reason.

''The liability issue is intimidating,'' said Thomas A. Shannon, executive director of the National School Boards Association, an Alexandria, Va., group that represents 15,350 school boards. ''School districts are very cognizant of the fact that a number of cases have been brought throughout the country.''

Although evidence is scant on how often schools have been sued in corporal punishments cases through the years, a dozen widely reported lawsuits since 1985 have left school officials skittish. The suits, which did not involve permanent injuries or deaths, were usually settled out of court for amounts ranging from $15,000 to $85,000, educators and lawyers said.

''Anytime you strike a child, there is a possibility that you are looking at a lawsuit,'' said Kathryn Wells Murdock, director of legal services for the Oregon Department of Education, who said the threat of lawsuits was one reason for the approval last year of a state law prohibiting corporal punishment.

An Effort to End Abuse

In Oregon, there was also a belief that by eliminating corporal punishment the state might, in some small way, help break the cycle of child abuse. ''The child who is abused continues to abuse,'' said Ms. Murdock. ''School is a fertile ground to unlearn lessons. Children don't necessarily learn better when they are hit.''

Anti-paddling groups agree, saying that even the American military, once a frequent user of corporal punishment, outlawed its use in 1874. ''Schools are the only place where that kind of punishment is still legally sanctioned,'' said Nadine Block, coordinator of the National Coalition to Abolish Corporal Punishment in Schools.

The uneven application of corporal punishment has also fueled the trend to ban it, educators said. Data show that minority students and children with behaviorial and learning disabilities are paddled more often than their white and non-handicapped classmates.

Statistics Show a Tilt

Nationwide, minority students, who make up 30 percent of the total 41.1 million students in public schools, accounted for 40 percent of the 1.1 million corporal punishment cases in 1986, according to the Department of Education survey. By comparison, white students, who make up 70 percent of the nation's public school students, accounted for 60 percent of the cases, the survey showed.

''I'm not sure that it doesn't actually have its roots in the mindset that minorities could not learn and needed physical force to teach them,'' said Benjamin Canada, the superintendent of schools in Jackson, Miss., which has banned corporal punishment after the 1990-91 school year. He said black students represented a majority of the 1,000 corporal punishment cases in the school year that just ended.

''There are alternatives to force,'' said Mr. Canada, whose school system will rely on after-school detentions and other non-violent methods.

Handicapped Boy Tells of Pain

Ms. Block said handicapped children had been disciplined more often because their special needs sometimes put teachers under stress, causing them to feel inadequate and to strike in frustration.

To address that problem, anti-paddling groups tried but failed last May to secure an amendment to the Federal Education of the Handicapped Amendments Act that would have prohibited the use of corporal punishment on disabled youngsters. In Congressional hearings on the amendment last February, Steven Allison, a 15-year-old visually impaired student from Maryville, Tenn., testified he had been paddled by teachers over his slow learning.

Expressing sentiments that school psychologists said are voiced by many students who have been struck, the student put his feelings this way: ''The teachers hurt me with their paddlings and their threats. They took away my self-confidence and made me feel worthless.

''When they paddled me for something I didn't understand, it made me feel like I was always doing something wrong and was a mean child. I don't want any child to feel like that.''

Photo: Concerns over lawsuits and child abuse have led many states and cities to ban corporal punishment in the schools. Glossie Terry of Benton County, Miss., said paddling by the teacher or principal is a necessary disciplinary tool. Her sons, Garrett, left, and Keenon, have both been paddled. (David Smart for The New York Times); Graph: States with highest percentage of pupils paddled each year (Source: National Coalition to Abolish Corporal Punishment in Schools) (pg. B12)